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Subject: Ultimate Use of Suites of Test Positions???

Author: Bob Durrett

Date: 17:11:31 12/06/02

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On December 06, 2002 at 19:48:09, Rolf Tueschen wrote:

<snip>

>Also a debate between you and me and others here is the best what could happen
>because that is interdisciplinary cooperation. You could bring the very best of
>your talents into the debate because others might go visiting on too many
>tangents... then you organize the recovery!
>
>Rolf Tueschen

My debating skills are worse than those of a newborn baby!  I know my
limitations.  That is my one great strength [I think.]  Besides, there are other
productive formats for discourse besides debate.
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

But I would like to get back to your ideas regarding chess software.

In particular, your feeling that it would not be possible to measure the
strength of a chess engine [or a human either, for that matter] by using a set
of test positions.

When students graduates from college with a Bachelor's Degree, here in the USA,
they are encouraged to take a comprehensive exam which is intended to indicate
whether or not the student learned anything. [Versus wasting several years.]

I had to take such a test.  As an electrical engineer, I was required to take
the GRE Advanced Test in Engineering.  I did very well on that test and was
admitted to Graduate School primarily for that reason.

I would like to suggest that, if I had to take such a test, it is only fair that
every chess engine should have to take an equivalent test too!

The test would be very comprehensive.  It would include five or ten suites of
test positions.  Perhaps 500 positions in all, minimum.  A new set of positions
would be used each year.

In the proposed scenario, the testing organization should have the
responsibility and resources necessary to design and adjust the tests to match
the SSDF results.

In other words, I propose a comprehensive test which has, itself, been tested
and verified against the SSDF [and similar] test data.

If you stick to your guns on this, you will assert that the proposed idea would
fail miserably.  Right?  But why would it fail?  Could you be specific, please?

: )  : )  : )  : )  : )  : )  : )  : )  : )  : )  : )  : )  : )  : )

Bob D.



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